1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to infrared sensor system techniques and more specifically, to a sensor system technique for fusing infrared bandwidths including shortwave infrared wavelengths for internetted infrared sensor systems.
2. Description of Prior Art
IR systems have enabled night vision technology to be used widely in many military applications such as: target acquisition, missile seeker sensors, night driving, and search and track. These systems have not only improved vision at night, but also improved vision through smoke, fog, dust, and haze and simple camouflage. Some limitations of these systems have been high cost, high weight, high input power; inability to see battlefield lasers, sophisticated camouflages, ditches, inability to see if minimal light is not available etc. In addition, the present systems do not solve the problem of friendly fire and force location. Additional problems occur when trying to combine (fuse) separate different technologies to overcome these different problems with the prior art.
Prior art technologies fused for low light level sensors and IR. The problem in fusing these technologies does not allow for camouflage identification because the present camouflage matches vegetation in the 0.6-0.9 micron wavelengths. However, in the 1-2 micron band (SW), no camouflage exisits today that can match the reflectivities of vegetation. The prior art suffers from this major limitation. Also, the 1-2 micron band has much lighter light levels than the 0.6-0.9 micron band and can be used in fog and haze, and lowlight conditions. This is not true for the present low light level sensors. The combination of 1-2 wavelength band and one or both 3-5 micron (mid-wave) and 8-12 micron wavelength (LW) bands solves many of the present fused sensor limitations.
While the prior art has reported using sensor systems, none have established a basis for a specific technique that is dedicated to the task of resolving the particular problem at hand. What is needed in this instance is an infrared sensor system technique for fusing sensor outputs for display to a user, whereby there is produced a viewable scene capable of observing through covered starlight, fog,,and haze, be able to distinguish reflected light, distinguish camouflage from a background in both 0.6-0.9 micron wavelength and 1.0-2.0 micron wavelength ranges, detect laser emission at 1.06 and 1.54 micron wavelength, and detect both surface and buried land mines.
It is therefore one object of the invention to provide an infrared sensor system technique for fusing sensor outputs for display to a user, whereby there is produced a viewable scene capable of observing through covered starlight, fog, and haze, be able to distinguish reflected light, distinguish camouflage from a background in both 0.6-0.9 micron wavelength and 1.0-2.0 micron wavelength ranges, detect laser emission at 1.06 and 1.54 micron wavelength, and detect both surface and buried land mines.
According to the invention, there is disclosed an infrared sensor system technique for fusing sensor outputs for display to a user, including multiple sensor outputs from an internetted system. Radiation input of a viewed scene is collimated onto at least two focal plane arrays, wherein each focal plane array senses separate bands of infrared radiation with at least one of said two infrared radiation bands being shortwave (SW) infrared radiation. The sensed radiation is converted to electrical signals and processed to fuse all bandwidths as electrical signals, provide contrast and edge enhancement, and spatial filtering which is then output as first output signals. Location data is also received and processed as a second output signal and sensor input from an internetted system is further received and processed as third output signals. The first, second and third output signals are fused and provided to a display for producing a viewable scene capable of being observed through covered starlight, fog, and haze, being able to distinguish reflected light, distinguish camouflage from a background in both 0.6-0.9 micron wavelength and 1.0-2.0 micron wavelength ranges, detect laser emission at 1.06 and 1.54 micron wavelength, and detect both surface and buried land mines.